Now we have passed the target which means that Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? can be produced, quite a few people have asked me when they’re going to get their book.
I understand and sympathise. You’ve shown your support, and now you want results, dammit!
I crave your patience and indulgence, because, it will take a few months for certain things to happen.
Thing Number One: The Birdwatching
This book is the story of my birdwatching year in 2016 (among other things). So naturally 2016 needs to finish before the story can be told. If you want a book that breaks this immutable law of nature, I recommend The Time-Traveller’s Wife.
Thing Number Two: The Writing
I’ve already done quite a lot of it, but see also Thing Number One. It’ll take a couple of months for all the excitement of the end of the year to make it onto the page. But I’ll write just as lickety-damned-split as I can, I promise.
Thing Number Three: The Editing
Having written, I will hand over the manuscript to clever people who will then tell me what’s wrong with it.
Thing Number Four: The Brief Moment of Hysterical Panic
This natural reaction to Thing Number Three is inevitable, but won’t last long, because I’ll have to move quickly on to:
Thing Number Five: The Rewriting
’Writing is rewriting’, so we’re told. What we’re not told is that there were 46 drafts of that famous maxim, from the first: ‘Putting things down onto paper with, like, words and sentences and suchlike is a really difficult thing to do, believe me, I’ve been doing it for years, and you have to do it over and over again because otherwise, you know, people won’t want to read it, and don't even get me started on checking for speling mistaks’, which is true but not exactly pithy, to the penultimate: ‘Rewriting is writing’, which is pithy but the wrong way round.
Thing Number Six: The Printing.
The clever people at Unbound make the book. With magic.
And then, dear patient and indulgent people, you will get your book. Meanwhile, there will still be these posts, embellished with the occasional photograph. Like this one of a little egret trying to make its way in the pylon-slalom race of life.
